Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

3 Dozen
38 min

For those who know me well, you probably know that I have always loved experimenting in the kitchen. This holiday season I set out to make the perfect soft cream cheese sugar cookies. After going through lots of butter and cream cheese, I’ve come up with a recipe that our family loves! These sugar cookies are perfectly soft and delicious.

Years ago while living abroad in Europe I had Scandinavian sugar cookies with cream cheese. These cookies remind me so much of the cookies I had back then. You won’t actually taste cream cheese in the recipe, but it helps with the softness of the cookie! Since the cookies are baked, you can store them in an air-tight container for up to 5 days. Although, I’d be surprised if they last that long.


MAKE THE SUGAR COOKIE DOUGH IN ADVANCE


For making the perfect holiday sugar cookies, I recommend making this dough in advance. I usually will prepare the dough one to two days in advance so that it can chill in the fridge before I roll it out and cut out individual cookies. When you prepare the cookie dough, it will still be a little sticky, but it firms up perfectly overnight in the fridge. Be sure to wrap the dough in saran wrap and flatten into a disk before placing in the fridge. This will make rolling it out easier.


When it’s time to make your cookies, simply take the wrapped dough out of the fridge and place it on a floured silicone rolling mat. Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out your sugar cookies. With your oven pre-heated to 375 degrees, place your cut out cream cheese sugar cookies on a baking sheet. I like to line my baking sheet with either parchment paper or aluminum so I don’t have a huge mess to clean up later.


Bake your cookies at 375 degrees for 7 to 9 minutes. Once the edges get slightly brown, remove the cookies from the oven and let cool for about 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Let your cream cheese sugar cookies finish cooling completely on a wire rack before you start frosting the cookies.



TIME TO FROST YOUR CREAM CHEESE SUGAR COOKIES

Of course my daughter’s favorite part is getting to decorate our cookies! While the cookies are cooling down, we make our butter cream frosting. This year we bought natural food coloring dye to mix with our butter cream frosting. We put our colored frosting into piping bags with fun tips to make decorating the cookies easier.


Once we decorated our cookies with frosting, we also added sprinkles and shredded coconut flakes. This was my first time putting shredded coconut on the cookies. Not only did it look like snow, it tasted sooo good! Once your cookies are finished, let the frosting harden a bit and then place cookies in an airtight container for storage.


We wrapped our cookies up on little plates and covered then with saran wrap. We placed a bow on top and played elf, delivering decorated sugar cookies throughout our neighborhood!

I hope you will give these cream cheese sugar cookies a try.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies
Recipe details
  • 3  Dozen
  • Prep time: 30 Minutes Cook time: 8 Minutes Total time: 38 min
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Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 Cups Flour
  • 1 Tsp Baking Powder
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 1/2 Cup Unsalted Butter At room temperature
  • 6 Oz Soft Cream Cheese At Room Temperature
  • 1 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
  • 1 Tsp Vanilla
  • 1 Egg
  • 1/2 Cup Flour Set Aside for rolling out cookies
Butter Cream Frosting
  • 8 tbsp Unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 3 cups Powdered Sugar
  • 1/2 tsp Salt
  • 2 tsp Vanilla
  • 7 tbsp Condensed Unsweetened Milk
  • Food Coloring Optional
Instructions

In a small bowl, combine flour baking powder, and salt. Mix together and set aside.
In kitchen mixing bowl, combine softened butter and cream cheese. Mix until well combined. Add one egg and mix. Stir in vanilla. Slowly add in powdered sugar until well combined.
Add in dry ingredients by the spoonful, mixing until combined.
Once all ingredients have been combined, your dough will still look sticky. At this point, lay a piece of saran wrap on kitchen counter and scoop your dough into the center. Form into a ball and cover with saran wrap. Flatten into a disk and place in fridge.
Chill dough in fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Pre-Heat Oven To 375 degrees. Remove dough from fridge.
Using the reserved 1/2 cup of flour, spread it out on a silicon pastry mat. On your floured surface, roll out cookie dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Using cookie cutters, cut out your cookie dough. Please cookies on baking sheet (I line my baking sheet with unbleached parchment paper).
Bake for 7-9 minutes, until edges are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for about 2 minutes. Transfer to wire cooling rack to finish cooling.
Store cookies in air-tight container for up to one week.
Butter Cream Frosting
Place butter and powdered sugar in mixing bowl. Combine well, making sure all clumps are out before moving on to next step. Add salt and vanilla. Slowly add in milk until you reach the desired consistency.
(Optional) Scoop spoonfuls of butter cream frosting into small bowls. Add food coloring to the bowls to add color to the frosting. Mix food coloring with frosting.
Spread frosting on to cookies and decorate! Sometimes I use a knife to spread the frosting on to the cookies and other times I pipe the frosting on to the cookies.
Jennifer Gulizia | The Flowering Farmhouse
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